First, I think that some critics felt the list was overwhelming, and didn’t really dive in and consider the ramifications (or lack) of the features mentioned. I think the length and detail of the text was misleading when skimmed. The feature set is not as intrusive as it looks at first glance.

There was also a healthy portion of “Markdown is plain text, I want to edit it as plain text.” And that’s fine. If you don’t need anything more than TextEdit or your favorite code editor, then a Markdown editor isn’t really your market anyway. The list–and any debate surrounding it–is for people who use Markdown-specific editors and want to expand on them.

There’s room for those who fall in between, of course, and I understand that anything that makes Markdown editing into a word processor is counterproductive. Markdown is also, however, about convenience. Increasing productivity while writing is my goal, not adding buttons, bloat or new markup features.

My initial list was formulated over several years, but written in about 20 minutes. It was loosely organized and quickly typed. I’ll attempt here to sort things a little better as I expound on my requests. This probably won’t be brief. Apologies in advance¹.

Invisible and unobtrusive

My dream editor’s features are transparent. Byword is a great example of this. You can just edit text in it with nothing standing in your way. However, it has a lot of handy tricks under the surface if you learn how to access them. They’re not blatant; you have to seek them out. Many of the items on my list fall into this category. They’re not attached to standard keyboard motions, so you’d never know they were there.

This is the basis for all of my requests. They are features that should flow with you, not jump out at you.

Keyboard shortcuts.

Having more advanced features assigned to key combinations that you’d never type accidentally does not add friction to standard text editing. It adds power for those who want to use them. There’s no reason, in my mind, not to have non-standard editing features available if they don’t interfere with standard Cocoa text field features.

Many of the items in my list mentioned an unspecified “hotkey” or “keyboard shortcut.” I didn’t assign anything because that isn’t really important at this phase. Developers will eventually work out what’s best, and a standard will evolve. I generally subscribe to the conventions that Allan Odgaard laid out for shortcuts in TextMate bundles. The key combinations I did specify were fairly standard for their behavior in this regard.

Take ⌘↩ for example. I don’t believe there’s any reason in the regular text system to hit Command-Return while typing text. Most people don’t have that in their muscle memory and generally wouldn’t think to hit it, so it’s an easy-to-remember but out-of-the-way shortcut. TextMate users, on the other hand, generally adore the fact that in TextMate this jumps out of the paragraph and starts a new line without breaking the line at your cursor (it’s ⎋o in Vim). This is useful, and you don’t have to avoid it if it’s unwelcome; unless you have a valid reason to be hitting ⌘↩, it’s a feature you’ll never notice.

On my own system (using Cocoa keybindings), ^⌘←/→ indents and outdents lines, and ^⌘↑/↓ moves lines up and down, swapping places with lines above and below. This is another convention borrowed from several places, and I believe it to be relatively standard for this action. I’m completely open to developers making arguments for something else, but again, this is a key combination that is easy to use but not something you’d accidentally trigger. ⌘[/] are also commonly used for indent/outdent. I’m open to anything that meets the criteria.

Automatically inserted text

Some features involve text being inserted as you type, which I think are the features that scare people the most. Rightly so; improperly implemented they’re an annoyance that adds friction to an otherwise very simple process. Properly done, they transparently remove friction and save time.

Features such as list continuation (an asterisk and a space being inserted on a new line when you press return at the end of an existing list item) are already becoming par for the course. List continuation has been around in some editors since I started writing Markdown some years ago. Many implementations of it, though, do annoying things like making you backspace the last list item before pressing Return. That’s a hindrance. I shouldn’t have to remove text I didn’t insert.

The same goes for auto-pairing. A poor implementation of it ends up with me spending more time deleting characters I didn’t want than it saves. It has to be smart enough to know when I actually want a right bracket inserted, and gracious enough to delete the extra character automatically when it’s apparent I didn’t want it. If it can’t do that, I’d rather not have it (selection wrapping, though, I don’t want to be without). Specifications for this behavior were in the original list, but I think that some readers glazed over that part (understandable, but you really should finish reading the post before firing off a Tweet).

Text manipulation

Along the same lines as ⌘↩, using tab to indent a block of text is very useful in Markdown, especially for creating “verbatim” blocks (code/poetry with line breaks respected). It also doesn’t tread all over any standard behavior. If you’d never used such a feature, why would you select text before hitting tab? It’s not a normal method of deleting text and inserting an indent, even though that’s what the default behavior for that action is. I’d bet that not many people have ever done that intentionally.

Wrapping and auto-pairing are usually mentioned together, but really are separate in my mind. As I said before, I’d rather not have auto-pairing if it’s not done right. Wrapping is hard to screw up, though, beyond how you handle the selection after the surrounding characters are inserted. In a normal situation you’d rarely select text and type a quote character. It would delete the selected text and leave you with a quote. To actually quote a section, you’d likely option-arrow to the beginning of the sentence, type your quote, option arrow to the end of the quoted section and insert another quote². Wrapping means you can hold shift and option-arrow from one end of the quoted section to the other, type quote once and be done, cursor ready to go at the end of the quote.

Service features

These features don’t even need keyboard shortcuts; they do just fine as menu items. Out of the way, but great tools to have available. Converting a selected block of lines into a list and batch reference link pasting from the clipboard are good examples. They are in no way interfering with your normal writing tasks. Learn to use them when you want to, and once you do you’ll be that much happier.

Other features such as footnote insertion and connection are advanced tools that should be connected to non-standard shortcuts, but ones that are easy to work into your habits if you choose to.

Link pasting behavior and reference title auto-completion should happen automatically but intelligently. Reference title completion is a huge timesaver if you have a group of reference links at the very top or bottom of your document and not visible on your screen from the current location. If your document is long enough for that to happen, you’ve probably forgotten the exact title you used for each reference. Get it wrong and you’ll have broken output. Type-ahead autocompletion prevents you from having to scroll to a document boundary, check the list, jump back and type in what’s probably only 5–10 characters.

Link pasting behavior is a little sketchier. I believe that Elastic Thread’s innovations are headed in a very positive direction. Selecting text and pasting a link should link that text. I’m willing to concede that–as we implemented in nvALT–the behavior might be best with a modifier key on ⌘V, rather than replacing the standard behavior for the “paste” key combination. Same with pasting a standalone link and having it automatically surrounded with angle brackets to create a self link, or preceded by “[]: ” if it’s at the beginning of a line. ⌘⌥V works nicely in both situations, with different behaviors based on context and selection.

Regarding syntax highlighting in text editors

I’m a big fan of the subtle highlighting that Byword does. Markdown text is designed to be readable, and dimming the markup and emphasizing marked up text appropriately just makes it that much more readable for me. iA Writer’s ability to pull the leaders on ### style headlines outside of the left margin also has this effect. I don’t like color changes or size changes. I do not want my plain text changing scale and hue while I type. Keep it simple, make it beneficial and unobtrusive.

Moving forward

I’ve already implemented almost every one of these features in one form or another across my own projects. Markdown QuickTags, for example, does about 80% of what I’ve mentioned, but it does it in a web browser textarea. Javascript doesn’t allow for the clean implementation that the Cocoa Text System does, and editing in a web view is not my first choice (or even my third or fourth). The Blogsmith Bundle for TextMate also has many of these features, as well as a somewhat dizzying array of additional writing tools, providing an enhanced environment for web writers. It was a playground for my ideas, and a way for me to weed out what was actually useful and what was a hindrance. Now I just want the fruits of that research brought to bear in an elegant, dedicated Markdown editor.

The tools I’ve built in System Services are handy because they’re application-agnostic and allow keyboard shortcuts and behavior to be consistent across editing environments. They’re slow, though. Having their functionality built in to my primary writing space would be much more ideal. Based on downloads and traffic, I think a few people agree that they’re useful tools. Elegantly implemented within an app, I think they’d be dynamite.

That’s enough of a rambling response for now. I’ll end by once again saying that this is fodder for critique among the plain-text faithful. These are my personal desires, but they’ll never come into being without being passed through a gauntlet of thoughtful debate. If I haven’t lost your attention, I’d enjoy hearing more responses. Then let’s make the best damn Markdown editor ever.

Related posts:

1. My ultimate Markdown editor wishlist
2. Crowdsourcing iOS Text Editor comparisons
3. Markdown QuickTags 0.7

Originally posted on BrettTerpstra.com at Regarding my dream Markdown editor

The wish list

• Emphasis shortcuts for selected text

  Preferably Command-B and Command-I. Selection should remain (expanded to include inserted emphasis characters) so that I can add multiple emphasis if I want. Typing any characters other than emphasis or auto-paired characters (including Space) at this point should move the cursor to the right, deselecting the text and continuing to type after the emphasis end.

• Intelligent indentation

  Creating a newline should maintain the previous line’s indentation, except when ending a list, in which case the indentation should be removed. Pasting text should remove indentation from the text and preserve the current indentation of the preceding line.

• List continuation

  Pressing enter at the end of a list item should create a new list item at the same indentation level and with the same list type, incrementing the number if it’s an ordered list. Pressing return on a line that contains only the list item delimiter (no text) should remove that delimiter and insert a newline. Never leave me with an orphaned, empty list item.

• Auto-pairing

  Needs to be smart enough to know when not to pair: Avoid pairing when inserting a starting element when there’s a non-whitespace character immediately to right, or when inserting a paired element at the end of a string that begins with an unclosed starting element.

  Backspacing the first character of a pair immediately followed by the right character should delete both of them.

  Obvious note: Characters inserted in this way must have the cursor placed between the resulting pair.

• Wrapping

  When the first element of a pair is typed while text is selected, it should wrap the selected text with the pair. Unlike pairing, the cursor should be placed outside of the last character of the pair, allowing you to start typing immediately.

• Link pasting

  Elastic Threads has worked some really intelligent link paste detection into nvALT, and I love it. If a link is pasted while text is selected, it adds an inline link to the selected text using the pasted url. If it’s at the beginning of a line, you can paste it as a reference title and position the cursor inside the title brackets. Pasted by itself with leading and trailing whitespace, it should make a self-link (<url>).

• Tab indents entire selection block

  God help you if Tab deletes a selection instead. Shift-Tab should function in the same way, outdenting entire selections.

• Shortcuts for moving lines up and down and indenting and outdenting.

  This should function on any line, not just within lists. If a current selection is shorter than the current line, the entire line moves, and if it spans multiple lines, the entire block moves including characters within the paragraph but outside of the selection.

• Auto-complete reference titles

  When the cursor is inside of square brackets immediately following a closing square bracket, it should start type-ahead autocompletion using all existing references in the document.

• Table of contents navigation based on existing headers, and shortcuts to jump to the next/previous header.

• Footnote insertion

  When a hotkey is pressed, a footnote marker should be added and the cursor should jump to a blank line after the current paragraph, inserting newline and a matching reference. Once you finish editing the footnote, the same hotkey should jump back to the footnote marker. I’ve already made this work in the Blogsmith bundle. It’s not that hard.

  This same method could be applied to reference links. When a shortcut is pressed while there is selected text, wrap the text with [text][unique title] and move the cursor to the next blank line or existing reference link title, insert [unique title]: and place the cursor after the colon and a trailing space. Using the shortcut immediately after typing should return to the last edit point in the text. Pressing the shortcut on a line beginning with a reference title should scan the document for the first reference to that title and jump to it.

• Headline level conversion

  Shortcut should increment/decrement header level for the current line, cycling from 0–6 and looping at beginning/end.

• List creation/conversion

  Running this on multiple lines should compact them into a list, preserving indentation. Running it on an existing list should change the list type between unordered and ordered. Needs to be aware of context, only changing within the current scope of indentation and not modifying nested lists. Byword does a really good job with this already.

• Blockquote level shortcut

  Using this shortcut should create a blockquote from the current line or selected text, and increase the quote level for the line/selection when pressed repeatedly.

• Reference list insertion

  There should be an option to parse the clipboard for all links and insert a set of reference links with a unique title for each, preferably based on the domain of the link for easier use when referencing later. The Blogsmith Bundle and my Markdown Service tools both include this feature.

• Ability to convert all inline links to references

  Should scan the entire document for inline links and replace them with reference links, references collected at the end of the document. The Markdown Service Tools have this capability, but Writing Kit on iOS is the only other place I’ve seen it implemented.

• Shift-Return and Command-Return

  Shift-Return (or possibly Control-Return) should insert two spaces and a newline to create a hard break. Command-Return should jump to the end of the current paragraph/line and insert a newline, allowing you to jump out of the middle of a line without breaking it. Command-Shift-Return should function like Command-Return, but add the two spaces before inserting the newline.

• Command-Arrow

  Command-Left/Right Arrow should jump to the first non-whitespace character of a paragraph, only jumping to the actual beginning of the line on second press. If the current line is wrapped on the screen, jump to the left side of the current line and then to the first character on a repeat press, just to maintain basic compatiblity with existing behavior.

Choose your own adventure

This list isn’t complete, but it includes the major things that I find missing (or would just like to see) in current implementations. Have any to add? I’ll edit this post as I think of more or hear good suggestions. Keep in mind that this represents my personal desires, not necessarily yours. I’m also open to hearing from developers who think any of these might be more cumbersome or confusing than helpful, especially if you have suggestions for modification.

[Update]: Still feel like reading about Markdown editors? There’s a followup post.

No related posts.

Originally posted on BrettTerpstra.com at My ultimate Markdown editor wishlist

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1. TabLinks 2.0 is live
2. Quick Link: Macdrifter interview
3. Big Nerd Ranchero

Originally posted on BrettTerpstra.com at 2x4 interview on Lifehack

I understand why my scalp has never forgiven me for the things I did to it in my teens and twenties.

I understand why my body has never forgiven me for the things I put in it when I was young.

I understand why my future took so long to start.

I understand and accept these things without question.

The unbelievable

I can not comprehend why my ex-girlfriends from my twenties have forgiven me.

I cannot believe my wife puts up with me.

I don’t understand how or why I’ve survived the things I have.

I can’t believe my parents were supportive through the worst of it.

I do not understand or comprehend these things, but I am thankful for them every day.

No related posts.

Originally posted on BrettTerpstra.com at Unbelievable fortune

On tagging

OpenMeta is the most useful tool in my tagging toolbox. It allows me to attach tags to anything with a filesystem representation: websites, documents, photos, source code, emails and more. Before OpenMeta we had to make do with whatever fields Spotlight would search, which was Finder comments on files, and really no options on emails and other items accessed outside of Finder.

Now that we have OpenMeta¹ and a plethora of tools (I highly recommend Tags.app) to work with, tagging is a real option. We just have to figure out the best way to make use of it.

Things I’ve learned

The goal of tagging is to associate files into groups that wouldn’t be feasible using a folder hierarchy. As I’ve mentioned before, I still use a shallow hierarchy, especially for grouping project files together. The idea of “one big pile” is as frightening to me as it is to most people. I use tags to create additional groups that might not otherwise be possible, bringing together files and other objects that might be related in ways that a folder reflects.

The primary problem you run into is that tag collections get out of control, and navigating them isn’t any faster than drilling through folders and mailboxes. This happens because multiple forms of a tag are used, or long after the object is tagged the original associations are forgotten. I’ve learned this the hard way, and on multiple occasions.

There are two basic approaches to tagging:

1. Tag with anything and everything you could possibly associate with the object (file, email, photo, etc.). It’s a free-association tag-for-all that results in a huge collection of tags. This is navigable, but often results in messy tagging.
2. Tag sparingly, only using tags that will be easy to associate other objects with. Anything that is searchable in text or other metadata is left out of the tags. This is the method I’ve come to use.

What I’ve learned is to do follow three obvious-sounding rules: tag intuitively, intelligently, and consistently.

Intuitively

Drill down

I typically limit myself to three levels of tags. Top-level tags encompass an overall topic or broad scope that the object falls into. For example, if it’s a website, I tag it with the primary keyword that led me to the page, or the subject I was interested in when I followed the link. If it’s a project you’re working on, a client’s name is probably the right choice for a top-level tag. Tags such as “email,” “communication” or “research” aren’t top-level tags. If used at all, those are third-tier.

Second-tier tags divide the group into subsections. If your top-level tag is a client name, then second-tier tags would include a project name or other unique identifier that can be shared across all related files. If you consider your top-level tag specific enough for narrowing a project down in a future search, just skip to third-tier tags.

Third-tier tags are where you begin to cross-pollinate the tag groups. These tags are going to be common tags across multiple top-level groups. Tags like “research,” “approved,” “communication,” etc. can make sense here. This comes down to personal style. The only real rule is that they have to be tags you’ll consistently use elsewhere within other scopes. They’re what make this different from just using a folder hierarchy.

This pattern allows you to view your tag groups in a drill down fashion. If you tag with two or three levels, it increases the ease of browsing in various situations. If you were always going to look for a file as CSS3, you should just use a folder. It’s nice to be able to browse for all your web design articles, but maybe you’re just interested in the CSS articles at the moment. A search for bookmarks tagged “tutorial” and “CSS3” will quickly produce all of the relevant articles you’ve found in your web browsing.

Plus, you can cross groups: an article that covers html, javascript and CSS would get tags for all three, assuming I would be interested in all subjects in the future. If I dealt only in CSS, I wouldn’t bother tagging with the other topics, it would just pollute my tag collection.

Choose tags that will be useful next year

“What will I search for when I’ve forgotten this item exists?” It’s not always an easy question to answer. The basic rule is to take what first comes to mind and ask yourself that question. Is the first association you make related to current circumstances or events? You might not have that association in a year. You want to use tags that come to mind easily, but double-check yourself to make sure it will be as front-of-mind when the time comes to search.

For example, if it’s a website, tag it with the primary keyword that led you to the page, or the subject that you were interested in when you followed the link. If it’s a project you’re working on, a client’s name and the scope or project name are probably the right choices for top-level tags.

There are a lot of edge cases. You get better at it after you’ve had to deal with your own tags for a few years.

Intelligently

These are common sense rules that make tag collections work. You probably know them already (or have figured them out if you’ve been tagging for a while).

1. Don’t tag with data already available

   Unless your system has no other means of searching metadata, you can always add things like dates, filetypes and even content to your search to find specific files within a tag group.

2. Use lowercase tags. Always

   It gets messy if you’re inconsistent, and autocomplete will almost always substitute the first capital letter it comes across in a completion, resulting in your previously unused tag now being capitalized.

3. Don’t use “flagged” or other time sensitive tags

   This one needs some explanation. Unless you are religious about removing “tickler” tags as you go, find another way to denote importance of the tagged element. Finder labels work well for files, and you can keep a “Current” folder with things that need to be attended to. Once you’ve handled whatever needs to be handled, you file it (or send it to a script that will).

   I know this from experience. I tend to be pretty good at reviewing my systems, but the “flagged” and “important” tags got out of hand quickly. Pretty soon I was looking back at flagged files, emails, photos and bookmarks and I really had no idea why they were important anymore.

   In a best-case scenario, you’re using a project/task management solution that allows links. If I need to reply/follow-up on an email later, I drag it into my task manager and create a new task. That gets the flag, the due date, and any notes I need to remember why. I could tag/flag the email as well, but then I’d have to untag it later. This way I just check off the task. Side benefit: assuming you don’t delete completed tasks, you can find it later and follow the link as an easy bookmark.

Consistently

If a tag is used only once, you’re wasting your time. You could have found that file, page, calendar entry, etc. with Spotlight. You didn’t need a tag to do that.

Keep a list of common tags if you need to, at least until they become second-nature. Most of the tagging applications will show you common/recently-used tags when you’re tagging. The best thing in the world can be autocomplete, assuming your tag collection isn’t already a polluted mess. Autocomplete in tag dialogs means you don’t have to struggle to remember casing, plural forms, etc., just go with what you did before.

I generally try to avoid capital letters, hyphenation and plural forms. I’ll use multi-word tags frequently, but without punctuation or intercaps.

Exceptions

There are some obvious exceptions to these rules in my system. For example, I keep a list of things I want using a “tobuy” tag. I have to manually untag these things as I buy them or decide I don’t want them anymore. The tag works really well with Smart Folders in Finder, though, and I don’t have trouble keeping up with it. It’s not an area that changes rapidly; just a folder I can browse when I have some spending money and a shopping urge. On these occasions I just untag “tobuy” items as I go through them. It never gets out of hand and it never takes long to update. Unlike the “important” tag I used to use in all of my projects, “tobuy” is basically a top-level tag that I always search for across all topics and groups.

I also sometimes use questionable tags for scripting purposes. I prefer client→project folders to their redundant tag counterparts, mostly just because I’m going to separate those anyway for the sake of filing sanity. I’ll use client/project tags on files on my Desktop, though, and my scripts will automatically sort those tagged files based on their tags and subtags. It’s a bit of a complex system, but it lets me use my Desktop as a general bucket for everything I’m working on, and have the various elements from multiple projects all neatly filed at the end of the day. The filing tags can be removed by the script after they’ve found their home.

There are plenty more exceptions. I don’t think any two people’s tagging systems will be identical. It’s the beauty of tagging: you can build a system that works for you. It doesn’t have to be rigid, but some general, self-imposed rules can definitely make it a more useful process.

Related posts:

1. On sorting, tagging and other nerdery
2. AutoTag2: smarter tagging for TextMate and WordPress
3. A Bash function for Markdown bloggers

Originally posted on BrettTerpstra.com at Some suggestions for better tagging

This also means I’ll be writing in the Read & Trust newsletter, a weekly circulation that includes a long-form article from one of the Read & Trust writers. Subscriptions are $5/month, and you get exclusive content from some of the best writers in the blogosphere. Each month has a theme (e.g. Creativity, Quality vs. Quantity, Fear & Loss…) and the authors rotate each week (I’ll be up next week). Sign up and you won’t miss any of the great contributions from the Read & Trust writers!

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1. Miami, Dallas and home
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3. Mac App Giveaway: Byword

Originally posted on BrettTerpstra.com at Read & Trust

Steve Jobs and his work changed the course of my life. I’m grateful. Thank you, Steve.

No related posts.

Originally posted on BrettTerpstra.com at Thanks, Steve

If you’ve read any of my writing or looked at any of my projects, you’re probably fully aware of the nerd wood I get for plain text. You know, the stuff that’s been around since the dawn of the computer and will still be around when there’s not an application left that can open a DOCX file. I have to admit, though, that there are some things I can’t–and don’t want–to do in plain text.

Plain text is good at storing pieces of information in a linear format. That’s what most of us do most of the time, so it’s a really fun (and potentially useful) thing to nerd out about. I do. A lot. But even among plain text fanatics there are always lines that have to be drawn. Some jobs require Microsoft Word for a final publication, sometimes an HTML email needs to be sent, hell, almost all of our Markdown–at some point–ends up as rich text for one purpose or another. The beauty of Markdown is that I can keep the source documents clean and just keep generating different output for different needs. That’s neat, and it’s what makes MultiMarkdown and apps like Marked so useful.

I don’t currently do any writing or work that requires anything other than a last-minute HTML conversion from text, so my line gets drawn a little further out. I even get away with sending raw Markdown in my emails (don’t judge, it’s really very readable and totally predictable cross-platform). The line for me, though, is at brainstorming.

It is, in my mind, impossible to effectively brainstorm in a text file. If you use a format that’s even slightly more flexible than a typewriter, you’ll get better results. A whiteboard, for example. A Moleskine you can doodle around in. In my case, mind maps. Hand drawn or created on the computer, concept map or mind map, it doesn’t matter. It beats text hands down.

Radiant thinking, as Tony Buzan coined it, is impossible to accomplish in a linear list format. A text file doesn’t allow you to continue multiple branches of thought simultaneously. Maybe if you had a dozen windows or split panes open in your editor and could jump around from section to section working on a bunch of indented markdown lists… but you’d still be less productive than I am in any mind mapping setting. I can almost guarantee it. I might be projecting, but I just don’t think the human brain works that way.

For me, it has nothing to do with pretty branch colors and tweaking font sizes. I’ll admit, if I’m presenting a map I like it to be pretty (maybe even stunning), but the number one reason I prefer the format is simply its structure. Jumping around from thought branch to thought branch, adding and extending idea nodes, I always find myself coming up with details and even new ideas that I know I wouldn’t have found if I’d just popped the initial idea into a text file.

Why am I writing this post? Hopefully to save someone else from wasting the time I spent pondering whether you really could do anything with text files. Turns out, at least for me, you can’t.

I’m okay with that, I really do love my mind maps.

Related posts:

1. Why a plain-text nerd uses Evernote
2. Quick Tip: MindManager to (clean) HTML
3. The Mac and iOS mind mapping app extravaganza

Originally posted on BrettTerpstra.com at When plain text is wrong

A Charter (my ISP) truck showed up outside of our house yesterday afternoon, ostensibly to work on a neighbors connection. Suddenly, the Internet was no more. As the truck drove away, a correlation was made, but it was too late. An immediate call to Charter, 10 minutes of “automated self-diagnosis” and a service rep in another State failed to bring the truck back. “Tomorrow, between one and three,” they said to my wife. I called back, irate, trying not to swear as it began to sink in that their customer service setup was simply a buffer to keep people like me from talking to anyone who could actually do anything. A fence to keep out the rabid dogs, I suppose.

What to do? I suppose we’ve tried to make the best of it. We went for a nice walk around our new neighborhood. We ate a home-cooked meal at the dinner table, which is a rarity. We retired to the living room and watched something my wife tells me is called a “DVD” on our sorely neglected XBox. I had forgotten we had either around.

That was all fine and good, but the next morning it really sunk in. I work from home which, as you can imagine (or well know), requires some connectivity to accomplish. Waking up without the Internet is neither convenient nor pleasant.

My wife, who has recently returned to college at our local University, was rear-ended last week (please, keep your mind out of the gutter). Her truck was totaled, and we let the insurance folks tow it away this weekend. So we have one car, and we live at the top of a very, very tall bluff. Biking to a coffee house is out of the question, and if she dropped me off in the morning before class, I wouldn’t be able to get back to the house during the much-anticipated service window.

Even my cell phone coverage is intermittent, usually boosted by a broadband-driven MicroCell. So I composed a brief explanation of the situation and waited for an Edge signal to show up so I could send it to my co-workers. Then, I had a cup of coffee on the porch and enjoyed the view.

I took a mid-morning nap, just because I could. Now, I’m writing a leisurely piece about the whole thing, but I still have three hours before the service window opens up, and potentially another two hours after that before anything is fixed. I will, obviously, survive. It’s been a stark reminder of how much my life really does revolve around the Internet, though.

Does it bother me that I’m so dependent on the “Cloud?” Not really. I’m a huge fan of the connectedness I feel online. I’m not very good at making and keeping friends in the real world. I don’t really want to be. For me, digital people are much easier to deal with. I’m also quite enamored with the conveniences of the Internet. Conveniences that as a child I never imagined would exist.

Out with my meat-world friends, I regularly use Shazam to identify a song. Then I use the web to learn more about the artist. Spotify instantly gives me a discography and we listen to our new-found artist on the way home. I smile the whole way, just because I never imagined this would be possible.

Debates at dinner are easily ended by my iPhone. Conclusive evidence is presented–complete with backup sources–in a matter of minutes. Information that may have taken a trip home–or even to the library (I think those are still around)–is easily garnered with a speed that would probably have resulted in burning at the stake not so long ago.

At home, my audio and visual entertainment depends upon online services. The catalogs of movies and songs at my fingertips is unfathomable, and I never take it for granted. I get a warm, fuzzy feeling when I think of a movie I want to see and am watching it five minutes later. A song pops into my head, often obscure, and without even being able to remember the title or the artist, I’m listening to it within seconds. Grin.

Now I’m here, without all of these things that I enjoy so much. I don’t like it, and would never claim that I find very much pleasure in being disconnected. Conversely, I do enjoy the unreachability sometimes. Do you remember when the web was a one-way conversation? The curmudgeon in me does occasionally long for that.

That doesn’t last long, though. Eventually, the urge to send a witty tweet and get a witty response arises, and it’s annoying to be unable to act on my impulses. It’s annoying to have to sit with a thought so long that I eventually realize it was neither witty nor worthy of sharing. I shudder to think how quiet the web would be if everyone had this much time to consider their actions.

Am I making the best of this situation? Yes. I’m thoroughly enjoying sitting on the back porch and watching the sky move from rain to sun, studying the traffic patterns of the cars in town–which look like Matchbox® cars from here–and breathing in real, honest-to-goodness clean air. Nothing beeping, buzzing or otherwise distracting me; it’s rather Zen. I know from camping trip experience that it takes at least 24 hours for me to really disconnect my brain. I’ll probably hit that point just as the Charter service tech shows up.

I could probably pontificate on this for another few hours, but I won’t. I’ll try to get some offline work done, then go back to the porch with another cup of coffee. I do apologize for the gap in my blogging schedule over the last few days. Work, Marked and nvALT all got in the way of doing the reviews I have planned. A WordPress/ifttt.com experiment gone horribly wrong on Saturday and now a 24-hour Internet outage (which I may have mentioned already) all conspired to keep this blog quiet. This will be remedied shortly.

Thanks for your patience, and we hope you’ll choose to fly with us again soon.

(As evidenced by this post, I am back online. Yay!)

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Originally posted on BrettTerpstra.com at An unintentional 24-hour Internet break

First, a “command central” for writing music, coding and fiddling. This has my Mac Pro with a dual-monitor setup, studio monitors, my Oxygen 49 and several mics, my acoustic, electric and bass guitars on a rack to the left and a lot of drawers for cables and additional gizmos (the Mac Pro there also runs the home automation and media servers). I can and will do my day job here, but this is the one I’m allowed to be chaotic at. It’s not that I’m not creative in a sterile (read minimal) environment, but the byproduct of my most creative moments is, well, chaotic surroundings. I’ve decided to just let that happen as it always has, but designate “concentration” spaces for my other two modes.

On the other side of my office is a nook with a small desk which has a keyboard drawer with a Bluetooth keyboard, Magic Mouse and a large Moleskine. There’s also a small lightbox. My MacBook Air sits in front of the lightbox, which is angled toward the wall, and I get a nice, empty desk with a comforting glow around my work area. This desk is for writing and nothing else. My brain is easily trained to accept certain reactions to certain spaces (e.g. bed for sleeping), so I think this will work well.

Lastly, the work-only space. On nice days in the warm 1/3 of the Minnesota year, I have an amazing outdoor office. It’s a small table in a small walled garden facing the heavily wooded area on the slope of the bluff. There are warm, yellow rope lights across the top of the area and the gate slides open to the back yard and woods. It’s pretty close to my definition of perfect. In the cold months, I have an extra space near my main office that I’ll be converting, but I won’t have to worry about that for another month.

I don’t really believe in being distracted. I believe that I procrastinate and create my own distractions, but my workspace rarely has anything to do with it. I have the job flexibility to be able to accept that my brain isn’t in a work mode at almost any time, take 15 minutes to read my RSS feeds or hack around, then get back to it. Once I’m in work mode, I get as obsessed with that as I do with my more creative pursuits. Of course, my job requires creativity, too, and I really couldn’t hold a job that didn’t. The minimalism in the auxiliary workspaces is more to help me keep my clutter contained than to prevent distraction. I think it’s going to work out great!

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3. nvALT 2.1 progress report

Originally posted on BrettTerpstra.com at An office for every mode

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Originally posted on BrettTerpstra.com at Moving day

Anyone who’s read this blog, used my projects or has talked to me about anything nerdy for more than five minutes knows I’m a fan of Markdown. The question doesn’t come up often, but occasionally someone dares to ask–despite the apparent probability that it will lead to a lengthy explanation–why I use Markdown in so many of my workflows. I give just about the same response to seasoned nerds as I do to my not-so-computer-savvy friends. This isn’t the Markdown what, it’s the Markdown why…

It’s easy: the syntax is so simple you can barely call it “syntax.” If you can use an emoticon, you can write Markdown.

It’s fast: the simple formatting saves a significant amount of time over hand-crafted HTML tags, and is often faster than using a word processor or WYSIWYG editor. It speeds up the workflows of writers of all ilk, from bloggers to novelists.

It’s clean: Markdown translates quickly to perfectly-formed HTML. No missing closing tags, no improperly nested tags, no blocks left without containers. You also get 100% less cruft than exporting HTML from Microsoft Word. There’s no styling inline, nothing that will otherwise break a site’s design or mess with the XSLT formatting for PDF output. In short, it’s foolproof.

It’s portable: your documents are cross-platform by nature. You can edit them in any text-capable application on any operating system. Transporting files requires no zipping or archiving, and the filesize is as small as it can possibly get.

It’s flexible: output your documents to a wide array of formats. Convert to HTML for posting on the web, rich text for sending emails or importing into a layout program for final arrangement or any number of other proprietary formats.

It fits any workflow: You can make Markdown work with any workflow. It can speed up just about any writing-related process with very little setup. It can also be scripted all to hell, if you want, because plain text is the most flexible of any format known to computer-kind.

And there it is, my two-minute explanation. I’ll be printing this on T-shirts which will be available soon. No, not really. I’ll just keep making Markdown as easy as possible with Marked and nvALT (yes, shameless plugs).

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Originally posted on BrettTerpstra.com at Why Markdown? A two-minute explanation

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Originally posted on BrettTerpstra.com at Gratitude

The TUAW Dev Interviews

Thanks to everyone I met at WWDC this year and to the friends I got to see for a great time. San Francisco was as beautiful as ever and the Mac and iOS development communities are, as usual, full of new and brilliant ideas. It’s always heartening to see. TUAW and MacTech will be posting the result of our blogging work at WWDC over the next few weeks.

The Smile party was a blast, and thanks to Jean MacDonald and Smile for throwing such a great geekfest. The TUAW bash was a great time, too, and it was great to see some Apple employees show up (happens less often than you’d think). They were there with Daniel Jalkut, and it was great to finally meet him, too. Violet Blue, Jim Dalrymple, Manton Reese and more than I can remember right now, great to meet you all!

I’m headed back to Minnesota right now, and not looking forward to the two-hour drive I’ll be in for after landing. Then I’ll have about 5 days to get things in order at work, get nvALT 2.1 released and pack before I head off to a family reunion for almost a week. I seem to be moving around a lot for a grumpy homebody. Oh, well.

Feel free to browse my WWDC 2011 photos to see a bit of what went on.

Addendum

So I’m sitting and waiting for a tow truck to come start my car right now, and I realize I forgot to thank Victor Agreda, Jr.¹ who instigated most of these meetings, kept me alive and introduced me to In-n-Out Burger. Thanks, Victor!

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Originally posted on BrettTerpstra.com at Thanks WWDC

Eddie Smith on App Store prices:

It might sound weird coming from a non-seller of apps, but I like seeing higher prices in the App Store. If the market will support higher prices, that’s a really good sign that the App Store is becoming a quality marketplace, not just a snack machine.

I use both free and paid apps that are probably worth hundreds of dollars to me based on what they do for me. Value is worth paying for, and the more profit potential the App Store offers, the better development we’ll see in it.

I agree. I’ve put myself on an app budget lately, so I’m spending less overall. As a result, I find myself saving up for the $10+ apps rather than trying every ninety-nine cent app out there. A realistic price for excellent apps makes them more valuable to me, increasing both perceived value and my likelihood to continue using an app. They become less discardable.

This could backfire if all of the crappy apps out there start upping their price just to increase their perceived value. It only takes getting burned once on a $15 app to make you think you should just stick with the cheap stuff. The fact that some really valuable apps are made available for less than three dollars only makes this pitfall worse. If only there were a better try-before-you-buy system in place, and prices weren’t set so arbitrarily. I know that setting a price for your own app is a difficult decision. Maybe we need a cheat sheet for developers to determine the sweet spot for their app pricing.

My app:

• Farts: go to jail, do not pass go. Do not collect 99 cents.
• Is a less-useful mimic of an existing app: Divide the superior app’s price by 3. Stop here.
• Provides rudimentary entertainment: Add $.99
• Provides unique entertainment with a refined experience: Add $2.99
• Provides an experience that makes full use of iOS features: Add $2.99
• Provides a valuable portable experience that rivals or beats a similar desktop experience: Add $10.00
• Is a tool that syncs with a valuable desktop experience: Add $5.00
  • Syncs with a valuable desktop experience and adds utility appropriate to the mobile platform: Add another $10.00
• Blows the mind of your target demo: Add $20.00

There, your starter pricing cheat sheet. It needs some refinement and a more complete handling of edge cases, but the basic rule of thumb is: “Create good apps with intrinsic value and refined experiences, then value your app appropriately.” Your customers–at least most of us–will truly appreciate it.

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Originally posted on BrettTerpstra.com at A cheat sheet for App Store pricing